Rachel's Visit

My sister Rachel came to visit for a week.  We had so much fun.  I still miss her being here!  It was so wonderful to have her around.  Her trip got off to a rough start; thanks to United Airlines she got here almost a day later than she should have and spent lots of quality time in the Houston and Frankfurt Airports.  But once she got here, everything went great!  She hung out with her friend Mo the first couple of days (her Dutch "pen pal"), but we got to spend lots of time with her the rest of the week.  We did lots of fun things. We went to the Hermitage Museum to see all the Van Gogh.  We went to the Waterlooplein Market (a few times, actually).  We went to the Anne Frank Huis.  We got poffertjes at the Albert Cuyp Market.  We had a really fun morning in Zaanse Schans, a little village about 30 minutes away.  It has all the traditional Dutch things:   a cheese museum, a bunch of windmills you can tour, a wooden shoe museum, the first ever Albert Heijn (the big grocery chain around here), etc.  Yes, it was pretty touristy, and by museums they mean stores, but we had a great time.  We had delicious hot chocolate at a little cafe and enjoyed how beautiful the countryside is.  We also had a few fun nights while Cameron generously stayed back with Andy.  We had a delicious dinner at Wagamama and then made a quick visit to the Red Light District so Rachel could see it.  We had some expensive late night hot chocolate.  Thursday nights the shops are open later, so we headed out for some time at H&M and Zara.  Once Cam's family got here, we all headed to the Cologne Christmas Markets for a day, but I'll blog about that later.  I'm so glad Rachel got to come visit and experience life here with us!

Rachel in front of Amstel. 

Zaanse Schans pictures:

The wooden clog maker.  So cool!